i am running around on all fours, at any speed i want. my dogs are running with me(i have 3). it becomes darker, and i notice my ability to control the speed at which i run is diminishing...i can still control the dream somewhat but my control is hampered alot. it gets darker, and there are no stars at all. its black at this point. i look to see if my dogs are still there, but instead, there are three shadowy figures hunched over....the lowest growl ive ever heard. impossibly low. they start chasing me. they hate me. i can run incredibly fast still, but im slowing down and they catch up to me. im still aware but in the dream im only human now. with human limits. its terrifying. they look into my eyes. they are intelligent. SO intelligent. its like they are far beyond my understanding, and they are all one being somehow. like representitives of something greater. i dont know how else to put it. im terrified, but then i think. okay taylor. this is a lucid dream, you are still in control. i look at them and tell them they cant do anything to me, because i can still wake up whenever i want. they are FURIOUS. they all howl. then they look at me as im about to wake and tell me, not in words, just with their eyes, that they will wait for me. i wake up. read a book, and go back to sleep eventually. im so tired i dont dream.

i avoided lucid dreams for a week or so.

next time i went into one it started normally. i was driving super fast in my car, down a road i could make as long as i wanted. it was great. suddenly it was dark, no stars, and the trees were dead and it was winter. i was confused. im driving fast and its dark so i almost hit something on the road. its shadowy. it leaps over the car(or i would have hit it) and i keep driving. two more times dark things fly over the car, and then i hear the impossibly low growl (sounding triumphant? i dont know) all around me, loud.

im horrified that it still exists. i wake and it howls, but not angry, because now i know that it can live dream to dream and wait for me.

after that i stopped lucid dreaming for a long time....2 or 3 months? when i try to lucid dream now, it doesnt work. i see the world i want to create, but its below me, and i fall towards it, and them im falling through it, and just falling and falling through reality. its dark all around as i fall. this is frustrating... sometimes i can catch myself inside the dream, but if i do anything too crazy i fall. like if i jump to high or run too fast... stuff like that.

im wondering just WHAT it is that my subconscious (or consciousness) has created...what those things ARE. what do they represent, and do they have anything to do with my inability to lucid dream effectively anymore?

Don’t get too freaked out, the dreams are all your creation and if you expect to be scared you will be. Put a few happy thoughts in your head before sleep - think of meeting these dogs in say a lighted place like a sports ground or just stopping and observing rather that reacting. In simple terms don’t fear them as you have created them. It’s not easy and you may get some more tips from some of the others. Its sound like you are part scared and part curious so expect that you will get it under control

Peter

Who are you I asked, the reply "dont be silly, we are your daughers" many years before they were born

The darkness is very reminicent of many of my early lucid dreams. It was always getting really really dark and although I wanted it to be lighter, it wouldn't get lighter. In some instance I was chasing the sun around the world, just to get out of the dark, but that didn't help, the world was spinning too fast. The dark menacing shapes might not be as bad as seem. It may be the case you just have to get used to them. I also used to encounter terrifing entities. I never did figure out just what they were, but in my own dreams I tied to be stronger than they were, and eventually I did get stronger, and the menacing shapes then began to run from me. My best suggestion on how to do this is to imagine yourseld as the bigger meaner one, and put those big mean dogs in their place.